Then and Now

Given that a lot of stuff happens in Los Angeles and not near my vicinity, there are times I find myself driving back home late at night and need music to keep me awake. During those drives I’ve realized that I need to listen to songs that I can sing along to, otherwise just listening to the song doesn’t do much for me.

For some reason, I’m terrible at remembering lyrics of English songs, but am pretty stellar at remembers lyrics to Spanish songs (or just generally terrible songs from my high school and college days, which I don’t need to revisit). So multiple times this year I have found myself listening to Spanish songs I grew up listening to…and realized I really am sad about how much some of my favorite artists have changed over time.

Example Numero Uno: Shakira

I remember singing lyrics to her songs when I was on a school bus in Guatemala, circa age nine. She was awesome. And her stuff sounded like this:

Or this:

Now it’s more like this:

or this:

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy her newer stuff. It’s catchy and I wouldn’t mind dancing to it, but it doesn’t have the depth in the lyrics that her earlier songs had. (I do really like her short hair, though!)

Ejemplo Numero Dos: Enrique Iglesias

I’ve already confessed this to Jeff, so what’s confessing it to a few dozen more people? I was ridiculously obsessed with Enrique when I was in high school. Like…pictures on my locker obsessed. We’ll leave it at that. His was the first concert I went to, and up until Bright Light Social Hour came around, the only artist I’ve seen in concert multiple times. Here’s the music I fell in love with (and still belt out in the car):

I mean, seriously.

This track sounds pretty dated, but hands down one of my favorites (although this fan made video has plenty of shirtless pictures of him to make up for it):

That whole album actually is pretty awesome, or at least to me.

Noooooow…..

Or….

Mind you, these are also sans mole. I might be one of the five people who wasn’t happy about that.

I’m very happy that both of these artists have achieved the notoriety in mainstream music that I’m sure every artists dreams of. I’m just sad it comes at the price of letting go of the style they originally had (I know, I know…it happens to all, and maybe they have to in order to stay current with pop culture…but I’m allowed to vent either way).

Feel free to leave before and after videos of your favorite artist in a comment :)